Here is a remarkable autobiography of one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century, seen through his frank, mesmerizing, and intimate letters. Sir John Gielgud, best known to audiences for his Academy Award–winning turn in the hit comedy Arthur, as well as starring roles in Gandhi and other major movies, was an incomparable actor whose career on stage and screen spanned eight decades, from his 1921 London stage debut to more recent smash films like Shine and Elizabeth. John Gielgud wrote letters almost every day of his adult life, whether at home in England or abroad. From thousands of letters, beginning with those to his mother when Gielgud was an aspiring but still unknown actor, the editor has chosen these two hundred gems. Through them we meet a man of keen mind and astute observation, who met hundreds of luminaries of his day. Gielgud candidly assesses his contemporaries and clearly delights in gossip. He had a lifetime reputation for speaking his mind, and here for the first time are his love letters, which were never available to his biographer, and through his eyes, hundreds of luminaries—Marlon Brando, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, and Sir Laurence Olivier—in “a book for anyone who cares about the art of theater” (Show Business).
Sir John Gielgud displayed a remarkable talent for writing as well as performing, publishing several books about his life and profession. This unique volume brings together two of these for the first time: EARLY STAGES, his classic memoir of childhood, of growing up and taking to the stage, with vivid evocations of his family and the people he knew and worked with, from his great aunt Ellen Terry to Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham and Peggy Ashcroft; and BACKWARD GLANCES, a collection of essays in which Gielgud shares memories of a life lived to the full, reflects on a range of theatrical matters, and draws witty and affectionate portraits of friends and colleagues such as Sybil Thorndike, Vivien Leigh and Charles Laughton. Written with grace, erudition, warmth and wit, GIELGUD ON GIELGUD provides an irresistible insight into the world of Sir John Gielgud.
The renowned actor draws on his experiences with Shakespeare's plays, as both actor and director, to illuminate the challenges of staging Shakespeare's works.
Over the course of his legendary career, which spanned eight decades, Gielgud reached a vast and varied audience, as attested by his status as one of only ten people to have won all four of America's top entertainment awards - a Academy Award, a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy. From his London stage debut in 1921, when he was only seventeen, through such highly successful later-day films as Gandhi, Shine, and Elizabeth, Gielgud never failed to make an indelible impression.
As a drama student at RADA and as a tyro actor in the 20s, Gielgud was a passionate playgoer, seeing everthing of note in the London theatre - ballet, revue and melodrama as well as straight plays. He attended the premieres of Shaw, O'Neill and A.A. Milne classics, and of course watched the leading players of his day. He kept every single programme, carefully noting down his views on the front cover.
A glorious compendium of John's scintillating irreverences and fabulous faux pas... He was one of the greatest of all theatrical personalities, and these utterly characteristic throwaway squibs bring him vividly back to life.' Simon Callow This delicious feast of "Gielgoodies", compiled by Gielgud's biographer, reveals a less well-known side to this celebrated man of the theatre: his lightning wit, his love of scandal and gossip, his wicked delight in putting down his fellow-artists, his relish of bawdy humour. Full of startling new material, drawn from many unpublished letters and Jonathan Croall's extensive interviews, the book also celebrates the man who dropped a thousand bricks. Gielgud's excruciating gaffes were legendary, and here are both the famous and the unknown, collected in all their glory. Whether committed backstage, in the wings or in rehearsals, on film sets or in television studios, they bring this merry and much-loved man vividly to life.
In this comprehensive volume, we see the actor in a range of roles: loving son, wicked gossip, star actor, indecisive director, anguished lover, brilliant anecdotist¿This splendid book reveals an infinitely complicated and attractive character. We may not look upon his like again' Jonathan Croall, SpectatorThe above quotes sums it up - this astonishing collection of letters brings us up close to one of the foremost, and best loved, actors of this century. John Gielgud wrote letters almost every day of his adult life. Whether at home in London or abroad, he delighted in recounting what he felt about events around him. Here for the first time - and not previously available to biographers - are Gielgud's love letters. They show that he was not shy is expressing the intimacies of personal relationships. He also loved gossip and writes about his contemporaries, including the great actors of period: Olivier, Richardson, Redgrave, Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans and the like. A revealing account but also a hugely warm and compelling insight into a man of many sides.
The commentary at the centre of this groundbreaking introduction alerts the reader to what happens on stage during a performance by showing what the text requires from actors and the choices they are offered. By this means, the Handbook demonstrates how an audience responds to plot and dramatic structure, what conflicts and issues are involved as the action unfolds, and the effects of developing expectation and variations of tension and pace. Chapters complementing this core feature provide an account of the three original texts, the theatrical conditions of early performances, and the play's social, political and cultural contexts. Generous quotations are given from books that influenced the writing of the play, and notable productions and performances are described to illustrate a wide range of interpretations. A concluding chapter quotes from recent critics and offers a number of different ways in which to understand the significance of this tragedy which has proved its enduring appeal.
At the height of her celebrity, Madeleine Carroll (1906-1987) was the world's highest-paid actress. She worked alongside such greats as Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton, British directors Victor Saville and Alfred Hitchcock, and Hollywood directors John Ford and Otto Preminger. She also did radio and television shows--all of which she abandoned to become a Red Cross worker. Piecing together long-lost facts, the author describes Carroll's almost indescribable life, narrating her personal highs and lows, as well as her fervent commitment to helping others--particularly child victims of war.
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: Biography Category National Book Award Finalist 2015 Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award A Chicago Tribune 'Best Books of 2014' USA Today: 10 Books We Loved Reading Washington Post, 10 Best Books of 2014 The definitive biography of America's greatest playwright from the celebrated drama critic of The New Yorker. John Lahr has produced a theater biography like no other. Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate. With vivid cameos of the formative influences in Williams's life—his fierce, belittling father Cornelius; his puritanical, domineering mother Edwina; his demented sister Rose, who was lobotomized at the age of thirty-three; his beloved grandfather, the Reverend Walter Dakin—Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is as much a biography of the man who created A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as it is a trenchant exploration of Williams’s plays and the tortured process of bringing them to stage and screen. The portrait of Williams himself is unforgettable: a virgin until he was twenty-six, he had serial homosexual affairs thereafter as well as long-time, bruising relationships with Pancho Gonzalez and Frank Merlo. With compassion and verve, Lahr explores how Williams's relationships informed his work and how the resulting success brought turmoil to his personal life. Lahr captures not just Williams’s tempestuous public persona but also his backstage life, where his agent Audrey Wood and the director Elia Kazan play major roles, and Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Bette Davis, Maureen Stapleton, Diana Barrymore, and Tallulah Bankhead have scintillating walk-on parts. This is a biography of the highest order: a book about the major American playwright of his time written by the major American drama critic of his time.
An important figure during the golden age of Broadway, John C. Wilson staged such famous productions as Kiss Me, Kate and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. He also worked with many of the greatest actors, playwrights, producers, and other artists from the 1920s through the 1950s, including Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Carol Channing, and Tennessee Williams. In his twenties, Wilson met Noel Coward and became both his lover and manager. Following Wilson’s marriage to Russian princess Natalie Paley in 1937, he remained close friends with Coward until John’s death in 1961. In Noel, Tallulah, Cole, and Me: A Memoir of Broadway’s Golden Age, producer-director Wilson provides an eye witness account of a never-to-be-seen-again period in American theatre and culture. The narrative covers Wilson’s youth, his education at Yale, his experience working in silent films, and details of his professional and personal relationship with Coward. Wilson also recounts his theatrical career on Broadway and in London, his marriage to Paley, and life within international high society. The people Wilson befriended—Tallulah Bankhead, Cecil Beaton, Claudette Colbert, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, among others—are described with affection, candor, and colorful panache. Wilson also shares behind-the-scenes stories about such landmark theatre productions as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Kiss Me, Kate. Completed in 1958, just three years before his death, Wilson’s autobiography sat idle for decades. Wilson’s great nephew Jack Macauley and theatre historian Thomas Hischak have edited the original manuscript and added commentary to help guide the reader through the myriad names and productions that are mentioned. From his long-term relationship with Coward to his enduring marriage to Paley, Wilson’s life was as charmed as it was celebrated. Featuring nearly forty photos, Noel, Tallulah, Cole, and Me is an engaging account of one of the most important periods in Broadway’s history, as well as a fascinating look into the lives of the glamorous men and women of the era.
Wit, dandy, literary anarchist, self-publicist, and homosexual martyr: Wilde achieved fame and notoriety at a time when mass culture and communication promoted the 'new' in every area of British life. This book examines the rich interplay between Wilde's society and his writings and shows the remarkable recontextualizing of Wilde and his work in film, stage, and the media in the century following his death. - ;Authors in Context examines the work of major writers in relation to their own time and to the present day. Combining history with lively literary discussion, each volume provides comprehensive insight into texts in their context. Wit, dandy, literary anarchist, self-publicist, and homosexual martyr: Wilde achieved fame and notoriety at a time when mass culture and communication promoted the 'new' in every area of British life - 'New Women', 'New Hedonism', 'New Journalism', 'New Imperialism'. His plays, tales, and critical writings questioned traditional attitudes to religion, sexuality, women and the home, crime and punishment, and the freedom of the individual. This book examines the rich interplay between Wilde's society and his writings and shows the remarkable recontextualizing of Wilde and his work on stage, in film and the media in the century that has followed his death. -
Biographies only tend to be definitive until the next one comes along, but there's no danger of Coldstream's erudite, moving analysis ever being superseded' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY. As an actor Dirk Bogarde was a Rank contract artist and matinee idol who became a giant of the intellectual cinema, working on films such as Death in Venice, The Servant and Providence. Fiercely protective of his privacy, and that of his partner of 40 years, he left England in the 1960s to live abroad, where he carved a second career for himself as a bestselling author. Although Bogarde destroyed many of his papers, John Coldstream has had unique access to his personal archives and to friends and family who knew him well. The result is a fascinating biography of a complex and intriguing personality.
An introductory guide to King Lear in performance offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key productions, a survey of film and TV adaptations, a sampling of critical opinion and annotated further reading.
During the Golden Age of the Broadway musical, few director-choreographers could infuse a new musical with dance and movement in quite the way Gower Champion could. From his earliest Broadway success with Bye Bye Birdie to his triumphant and bittersweet valedictory, 42nd Street, musicals directed by Champion filled the proscenium with life. At their best, they touched the heart and stirred the soul with a skillful blend of elegance and American showmanship. He began his career as one-half of "America's Youngest Dance Team" with Jeanne Tyler and later teamed with his wife, dance partner, and longtime collaborator, Marge Champion. This romantic ballroom duo danced across America in the smartest clubs and onto the television screen, performing story dances that captivated the country. They ultimately took their talent to Hollywood, where they starred in the 1951 remake of Show Boat, Lovely to Look At, and other films. But Broadway always called to Champion, and in 1959 he was tapped to direct Bye Bye Birdie. The rest is history. In shows like Birdie, Carnival, Hello, Dolly!, I Do! I Do!, Sugar, and 42nd Street, luminaries such as Chita Rivera, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Robert Preston, Tony Roberts, Robert Morse, Tammy Grimes, and Jerry Orbach brought Champion's creative vision to life. Working with composers and writers like Jerry Herman, Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, and Bob Merrill, he streamlined the musical making it flow effortlessly with song and dance from start to finish. John Gilvey has spoken with many of the people who worked with Champion, and in Before the Parade Passes By he tells the life story of this most American of Broadway musical director-choreographers from his early days dancing with Marge to his final days spent meticulously honing the visual magic of 42nd Street. Before the Parade Passes By is the life story of one man who personified the glory of the Broadway musical right up until the moment of his untimely death. When the curtain fell to thunderous applause on the opening night of 42nd Street, August 25, 1980, legendary impresario David Merrick came forward, silenced the audience, and announced that Champion had died that morning. As eminent theatre critic Ethan Mordden has firmly put it, "the Golden Age was over." Though the Golden Age of the Broadway musical is over, John Gilvey brings it to life again by telling the story of Gower Champion, one of its most passionate and creative legends.
Since the Second World War, we have witnessed exciting, often confusing developments in the British theatre. This book, first published in 1976, presents an enlightening, objective history of the many facets of post-war British theatre and a fresh interpretation of theatre itself. The remarkable and profound changes which have taken place during this period range from the style and content of plays, through methods of acting, to shapes of theatres and the organisational habits of managers. Two national theatres have been brought almost simultaneously into existence; while at the other end of the financial scale, the fringe and pub theatres have kicked their way into vigorous life. The theatre in Britain has been one of the post-war success stories, to judge by its international renown and its mixture of experimental vitality and polished experience. In this book Elsom presents an approach to the problems of criticism and appreciation which range beyond those of literary analysis.
No theatre company has been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for television and cinema as the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starting with Richard III filmed in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre before World War One, the RSC's accomplishments continue today with highly successful live cinema broadcasts. The Wars of the Roses (BBC, 1965), Peter Brook's film of King Lear (1971), Channel 4's epic version of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) and Hamlet with David Tennant (BBC, 2009) are among their most iconic adaptations. Many other RSC productions live on as extracts in documentaries, as archival recordings, in trailers and in other fragmentary forms. Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company explores this remarkable history of collaborations between stage and screen and considers key questions about adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre, film and television. John Wyver is a broadcasting historian and the producer of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and is uniquely well-placed to provide a vivid account of the company's television and film productions. He contributes an award-winning practitioner's insight into screen adaptation's numerous challenges and rich potential.
(Applause Books). Shakespeare, Coward, Christie, Lloyd Webber and so many more ... you'll encounter them all using this wonderful tour guide on walks through theatrical history in present-day London. Applause is pleased to present a substantially revised, new edition of one of our most popular titles, London Theatre Walks . Jim De Young is out to entertain and educate as he guides his readers through the streets of London with authority, humor and relish. It's like having a personal tour guide escorting you from the magnificently restored Globe Theatre to the newly remodeled Lyceum Theatre, from Shakespeare to Les Miserables . London Theatre Walks reveals the original inspirations for some of the most famous plays in the English language. It visits the trysting spots of London's greatest actors and actresses, and the homes of England's greatest playwrights. All the tours begin and end at a well-known London landmark, making them easy and safe for even a first-time visitor. Every expedition is filled with enough detail to satisfy the most curious scholar, and enough juicy gossip and colorful legend to entertain every theatre fan. And the tour guides don't believe in walking with parched throats; they point out dozens of theatrical watering holes along the way. Detailed maps accompany the 13 easy-to-follow tours, which have been updated with the most contemporary information.
Stokes offers studies of Wilde's place in the Romantic tradition, and of his relationships with such legendary figures of the fin de siecle as Aubrey Beardsley, Alfred Jarry, and Arthur Symons. And always, as part of the process of historical inquiry, Stokes considers those who came after: humanitarian disciples who kept Wilde's memory sacred, performers in his plays, actors who impersonated the man himself.
The first full biography of Britain's leading actress of her time. Whether it is her sunny temperament, her gift of laughter, her wide-ranging abilities, or all three, Judi Dench is without doubt a star. Shortlisted for a 1998 Oscar for her performance as Queen Victoria in MRS BROWN, she then won one for her role as Queen Elizabeth in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Judi Dench is widely loved, and not only among the theatrical profession. Her long-running appearance opposite Geoffrey Palmer in the TV situation comedy AS TIME GOES BY has run to four series and gained her a TV TIMES readers' award as ¿the actress we most wish see more often on television¿. She juggles the National Theatre (a sell-out season in Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC and David Hare's AMY'S VIEW) with TV and films (she is now established as 'M' in the latest James Bond series). Since the paperback edition was published, John Miller has written a new chapter, bringing what is fast becoming a classic biography completely up-to-date.
An intimate journey across and in search of America, as told by one of its most beloved writers, in a deluxe centennial edition In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life—a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South—which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand—Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition also features French flaps and deckle-edged paper. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. From the Trade Paperback edition.
This tenderhearted story, based on the love letters the author's father wrote to the woman who became his wife in 1933, including numerous excerpts, is told by their son for those of us who have experienced or imagined the love of a lifetime.
Robert Shaw is most celebrated today as the Oscar-nominated star in movies like From Russia with Love, A Man For All Seasons, The Sting and - most memorably of all - as Quint in the record-breaking Jaws. His breakthrough came when Hollywood was experiencing something of a British Invasion. Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole, Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Burton were among the new stars. But Shaw was arguably more talented than any, a figure of extraordinary and wide-ranging promise. More than just a mesmerising actor on stage and screen, he was also a gifted writer. He wrote no less than six published novels (winning the Hawthornden Prize), while his plays include the acclaimed Man in The Glass Booth. The flipside to Shaw's diverse abilities was his well-earned reputation as a hellraiser. A fiercely competitive man in all areas of his life, whether playing table tennis or drinking whisky, he emptied mini-bars, crashed Aston Martins, fathered nine children by three different women, made (and spent) a fortune, and set fire to Orson Welles' house. He died at 51, having driven himself too hard, too fast, but unable to get over his father's suicide when Shaw was just 11. John French, Shaw's biographer, knew him well, professionally and personally. Robert Shaw: The Price of Success is a perceptive, sympathetic, but unsparing portrait of the blessings and curses endowing this mercurial, enigmatic and deeply engaging man. This edition features a new foreword written by Richard Dreyfuss. Praise 'Both impressive and immaculate, a tremendously skilled biography... chillingly well told.' Sheridan Morley 'I liked Robert Shaw: The Price of Success tremendously, and applaud its digital rebirth.' Robert Sellers, author of Hellraisers and Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down
John Kane-Berman is uniquely qualified to look back over the enormous political and social changes that have taken place in his lifetime in this fractious country. In his career as student leader, Rhodes Scholar, newspaperman, independent columnist, commentator, and Chief Executive, for thirty years, of the South Africa Institute of Race Relations, Kane-Berman has been at the coal face of political change in South Africa. The breadth and depth of ideas and events covered in Between Two Fires are striking: the disintegration of apartheid, the chaos of the 'people's war' and its contribution to the broader societal breakdown we see today, the liberal slideaway, the rise of an authoritarian ANC with its racial ideology and revolutionary goals, to mention only a few. It is a book of fizzing ideas. Kane-Berman's willingness to confront received wisdom is thoroughly refreshing, and he is forthright about the threats to freedom, democracy, and growth in contemporary South Africa, many of which he identified even before the ANC came to power. He is equally forthright in putting forward liberal ideas to halt the country's downward slide. Writing, debate, and reasoned argument are Kane-Berman's stock in trade, and his clarity of vision and personal insight have created a memoir of rare candour and absorbing interest.
Cold War Theatre, first published in 1992, provides an account of the theatrical history within the context of East/West politics. Its geographical span ranges from beyond the Urals to the Pacific Coast of the US, and asks whether the Cold War confrontation was not in part due to the cultural climate of Europe. Taking the McCarthy era as its starting point, this readable history considers the impact of the Cold War upon the major dramatic movements of our time, East and West. The author poses the question as to whether European habits of mind, fostered by their cultures, may not have contributed to the political stalemates of the Cold War. A wide range of actors from both the theatrical and political stages are discussed, and their contributions to the theatre of the Cold War examined in a hugely enjoyable and enlightening narrative. This book is ideal for theatre studies students.
Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock had to contend with a wide variety of censors attuned to the slightest suggestion of sexual innuendo, undue violence, toilet humor, religious disrespect, and all forms of indecency, real or imagined. From 1934 to 1968, the Motion Picture Production Code Office controlled the content and final cut on all films made and distributed in the United States. During their review of Hitchcock's films, the censors demanded an average of 22.5 changes, ranging from the mundane to the mind-boggling, on each of his American films. In his award-winning Hitchcock and the Censors, author John Billheimer traces the forces that led to the Production Code and describes Hitchcock's interactions with code officials on a film-by-film basis as he fought to protect his creations, bargaining with code reviewers and sidestepping censorship to produce a lifetime of memorable films. Despite the often-arbitrary decisions of the code board, Hitchcock still managed to push the boundaries of sex and violence permitted in films by charming—and occasionally tricking—the censors, and by swapping off bits of dialogue, plot points, and individual shots (some of which had been deliberately inserted as trading chips) to protect cherished scenes and images. By examining Hitchcock's priorities in dealing with the censors, this work highlights the director's theories of suspense as well as his magician-like touch when negotiating with code officials.
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